Good practice at work

As well as ensuring legal rights and responsibilities are met, there is a lot more that businesses can do to support their staff, ensure they are motivated and help them be more productive. Good people management and engaged staff are key to both business success and job satisfaction.

This section explains what you should be doing as a business to engage your staff or what your employer should be doing to support you at work. Many of the subjects here may also form part of internal policies in some businesses and so be covered by the rules at your workplace.

Read more here about, for example, people and performance management, employee engagement, staff wellbeing and handling social media.

Acas Productivity tool

Take the Acas self-diagnosis Productivity Tool test to understand your organisation's strengths and weaknesses, and to help you identify simple practical steps you can take to get the best out of your staff. The tool will produce a report with links to relevant Acas guidance and services.

Acas publications

You can download or order booklets, leaflets and handbooks covering a wide range of employment matters, from writing a contract of employment, to holiday entitlement, to the latest employment legislation, from our Publications section.

Further training and support from Acas

Acas advisers can offer training, advice and support on many of the key areas of best practice in employment and management. Find out more here

Try Acas Helpline Online

This new automated system learns from your questions and, as more people use it, will get better at providing the most relevant answer to your query. We will be tracking any un-answered questions and, in each case, considering whether to add them to the system to help it fit your needs as closely as possible.

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Acas is looking for users of our Helpline Online tool, to participate in a research project to help improve it. Details of how to participate will be provided in a pop-up screen after you have used Helpline Online (you may need to disable any pop-up blockers in your browser).

Acas Model Workplace

Acas' free online tool - the Acas Model Workplace is designed to help organisations check that they have the right people management policies in place.

Of those who have used the Acas online tool, more than a quarter (28%) said that it had made them aware of an area where their organisation was not complying with the law (through incorrect people policies and procedures).

A lot of employers don't realise that they are following out-of-date practices. Or that they need to introduce new policies to comply with employment legislation. Further findings from the survey of employers show that 55% actively changed practices based on what they found when using the Acas Model Workplace tool.

This tool is free to use. Why not take a few minutes to check your policies and procedures today.